


You Better Not Cry

by Annie D (scaramouche)



Series: John McClane is an Asshole [2]
Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-29
Updated: 2009-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 10:38:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/40821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scaramouche/pseuds/Annie%20D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matt and Lucy talk about John. It doesn't go as Matt expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Better Not Cry

Matt doesn’t have a plan. He does, however, have Lucy’s phone number. It feels a little like cheating, but options are a dry well that make even Yahoo!answers look tantalizing.

She answers after three rings. “What’s up, Farrell?”

“Your father hit on me.”

Okay, he didn’t mean to say that up front.

He _had _wanted to start by asking Lucy about her day, her week, her classes, whatever needed to lure her into a false sense of security that this was going to be nothing more than a casual call between friends, hoping that after a couple of minutes he’d have earned enough good will to drop the bomb and beg for advice, emotional support, _something_.

Though he vaguely thinks that’s not enough good will in _the world_ for it to be okay to drop that kind of bomb.

“Excuse me?” Lucy asks.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” Matt rattles on, “Got so much on my mind, there’s this movie on, I was just following the dialogue and—”

“Cut the crap, Farrell,” Lucy says, and Matt does. He thinks she sounds more shocked than angry, though that may just be wishful thinking. Then she says, “Did he hit you, or hit _on_ you?”

For a moment he considers leaping on to the escape route of that first option, but pulls back quickly at the realization that that’s just shitty thinking. “Uh.”

Lucy is quiet, and Matt doesn’t know what this silence means. Is she waiting? Processing? Shampooing her hair? Sending out death thoughts through the phone line?

“There are some things,” Lucy says, blissfully breaking the silence, but Matt’s only relieved until she continues, “that I never want to know about my father’s personal life. Ever.”

“No, no, wait, I had a point,” Matt says.

“_Ever_.” She hangs up.

Well, that’s a bust.

 

 

 

  


* * *

  


 

 

 

Some hours later, well after dinner and into late night prime time, Lucy calls back.

Matt’s not expecting any contact from her until the next decent holiday (at the _least_) so his fingers go funny when he sees her name on the cell screen. It takes way too long for him to pick up, clearing his throat through the forced casual, “Hey.”

“I’m going to talk now, and you’re going to listen,” Lucy says.

“Sure, sounds good to me.”

“_You,_ listen.”

Matt swallows the automatic _got it_ back into his throat.

“I love my father, and will not hear a bad word against him,” Lucy says, and Matt knows the ominous disclaimer of an opening when he hears one. “But I like you, Matt. You’re a good guy. You’re a great guy, even.”

“Oh, thanks, I—”

“I said _listen_.”

Matt presses his lips together.

Lucy sighs. “You deserve better.”

Wait, _what_?

“I don’t want to know whatever it is that’s going on between the two of you,” Lucy says, “But you’ve got to know this. My father – he’s bad at relationships. And I mean _bad_. Sure, he’s great when it counts, and he cares deeply for the people he chooses to care about, but he _sucks_ when it comes to the every day. I should know, I was there.”

Matt squirms. This is territory he has no right to encroach, but Lucy isn’t done.

“You know how much my father loves me, right?” Lucy asks. When Matt doesn’t say anything, she adds, “You can answer.”

“Yes, of course, it’s obvious,” Matt says.

“He loves me, and he still hurt me.” Lucy’s voice is small, perhaps the most fragile Matt will ever hear from her. “More than once. More times than I care to count.”

There’s a push and pull here that rattles everything in Matt’s head. He knows that Lucy knows what the hell she’s talking about. _Of course_ there’s a reason Lucy only occasionally uses the McClane name. _Of course _there’s a reason Lucy’s developed the stubborn, thick skin that she has. Her history is _his_ history, and Matt cannot dispute it.

Yet, there is something rising up in him, telling him to argue.

To _defend_.

“You deserve better than that. Either this is one of his casual escapades,” and there’s no mistaking the flicker of disgust in the word _casual_, like this is something she’s seen John indulge in more than once, “which will end up with the both of you never speaking to each other ever again, or he means it, and you’re in for a world of heartbreak.”

What can Matt say to that?

“But hey!” Lucy says, all brightness now, “I’m not judging you, or anything like that. If casual’s your thing, go for it. Just, you know, _don’t tell me anything_. Ever. I mean it.”

“Yeah,” Matt says weakly. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Lucy’s voice is gentle now, almost fond. “You’re a good guy, Matt. Don’t ever forget that.”


End file.
